Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Fencers]

How many people actually do those raids just for the raid itself and not for the loot (for the aforementioned vertical progression)?

A good deal of the serious raiding groups I have been a part of were keenly interested in the content rather than gear rewards. For us, my group and me, it was mostly because MMORPGs are rather "easy" games. So it was really the only thing that was a challenge of some sort back in the day.

Though the question you are asking is fundamentally faulty; vertical progression is the gameplay goal and draw of many such games in the MMO space. I get the sense you are speaking on this with a degree of derision for being interested in the reward rather than the content, but that is a misguided assessment of vertical progression as a mechanism or metaphor.

One is supposed to be excited for the +1 sword more so than slaying the dragon. That is the gameplay expression.

The gameplay goal to simply "slay the dragon" for the sheer pleasure of it is provided in action games more so than stat based or strategy based games. The latter making up the bulk of vertical progression systems. One's "stats" is the gameplay of such games.

You can't be interested in vertical progression gameplay if you are not interested in vertical progression gameplay. It makes no sense. Being interested in the content because it provides a 1up is why and what vertical progression gameplay attempts to express.

[lawow74]

What don't you like, actual hard content or vertical progression? It's relatively easy to make wow-style raids that require no vertical progression at all.

I never did anything beyond the LFR difficulty cos I didn't care about challenge. I'm here for entertainment, not work. The grind to gear up to get in, then beating my head against the RNG wall after sitting in a DPS queue for an hour week after week across all my chars just...no. I managed to get one of each class in full epic-quality gear, high enough ilvl they could have done the Throne of Thunder LFR, and at that point I was just...done. It was not worth bothering to me anymore.

The most fun I ever had in WoW was the Battlefield: Barrens event. Guess what that was like in many respects? Yep. Champ training. No queue, no holy trinity bullshit, just swoop down, kick the boss's ass, get your loot and swoop off to the next boss. And that only lasted for a while. GW 2 was like that all the time. With no sub fee. Plus I was a fan of GW from back in the day of Prophecies on up until the start of their GW: Beyond 'content' to bridge to GW 2.

No constantly climbing the level ladder(character and item), no waiting around for other players to get permission to play relevant content, no paying a monthly fee just so you can keep doing those two tiresome chores.

So I guess the answer is: neither one. I like my easy content and horizontal progression. Long as they keep making Living Story content that's player-centric for me to enjoy, I'll keep playing.

[Fencers]

Not all vertical progression models rely on random drops similar to the World of Warcraft endgame. Many systems offer determinism of a degree to the upward progress of a unit or player character.

[lawow74]

Not all vertical progression models rely on random drops similar to the World of Warcraft endgame. Many systems offer determinism of a degree to the upward progress of a unit or player character.

This is true. Neverwinter, for example, uses branching choices of upgraded stats as rewards for progressing through their campaigns.

[Kelimbror]

How many people actually do those raids just for the raid itself and not for the loot (for the aforementioned vertical progression)?

Anyone telling you 'lots of people do it just for the raid' are either not understanding the actual situation or aren't correct. The largest portion of people raid for progression. This is gear. This is prestige. This is achievements. Almost no one does it just to do it, ie the actual experience of raiding. It has always been progression, manifested most concretely in the gear. We all raid for the purples. Everyone else is in denial.

Now, if a game introduced raiding with different design and goal structures, then maybe. Would raids in GW2 as is, with no treadmill or progression of note, still raid? I think participation would be even lower than normal. They would really, really need to consider how to set up reward structures to do that. While people playing GW2 may be more prone to doing it for cosmetic rewards as opposed to power, no one is going to do it just to do it. (repeatedly anyways)

[Fencers]

It super unlikely they would introduce a raid type mode in GW2 where there is no reward of some kind. In which case one is raiding for the "purples" just the same.

Almost no one does it just to do it, ie the actual experience of raiding.

I think is probably true. But some people do raid just for the fun of it. Such as myself, my husband, my guild leader of 7 years, a few friends, et cetera.

Getting the "purples" is a matter of course. Rarely does one have to actively work to really get that gear/reward. They literally just happen and you get all your stuff anyway in X weeks anyway. No matter who you are for the most.

I have had few bad experiences raiding. It's usually a ton of fun and often mechanically interesting. Though I think those overly negative about the 2nd era MMO raiding scheme have likely had frustrating &/or poor experiences which lead to a certain bias.

[lawow74]

Anyone telling you 'lots of people do it just for the raid' are either not understanding the actual situation or aren't correct. The largest portion of people raid for progression. This is gear. This is prestige. This is achievements. Almost no one does it just to do it, ie the actual experience of raiding. It has always been progression, manifested most concretely in the gear. We all raid for the purples. Everyone else is in denial.

I would say progression is the reason, but how a person shades that definition varies. Not everyone is after the epics just to have them/show them off. For some, they are just a means to an end, their goal being able to say they completed the raid(achievements)or seeing the content completed with their friends(social activity).

In order to get people to do raid-style content you have to answer that 'want' on many levels at once to draw in all the different types of players together. That can be both an up and a downside for that style of content.

Raid content rewards in GW cannot break the power ceiling, else it destroys the foundation of the game. Exclusive rewards, titles, or better methods of gaining coveted items(like Precursors, Ascended materials/equipment, and so on)are all good carrots to dangle on the stick.

Me personally, I'd favor having two versions: One a Living Story-style version so people can just see the area/models/story of it that awards things comparable to other LS content, the other the 'real' version with the hard-tuned group-oriented mechanics and the good rewards for the raid content.

- - - Updated - - -

I have had few bad experiences raiding. It's usually a ton of fun and often mechanically interesting. Though I think those overly negative about the 2nd era MMO raiding scheme have likely had frustrating &/or poor experiences which lead to a certain bias.

Some of us can't help that bias. I am unable to get landline broadband and where I live there is no LOS to a cell tower. So my only viable broadband service is satellite internet. Try playing in a raid environment with an insurmountable 800ms of ping and come back, let me know how fun it was. I refuse to subject myself to that kind of aggravation and all the compounded problems it creates.

[Fencers]

Seems kinda boring to have "instanced raiding" in GW2, tbh. Too many games have had raiding in that style.

I would like a return to raid zones, like in EQ. Or perhaps something like the elite areas in SWTOR w/ mini goals spread out through elite zone.

Once I played a game that had such a device implemented. One of the endgame zones was split in two essentially; the questing/mundane half which led you out of the zone and on to the next eventually, and an "elite" half with several meta goals and open world raid bosses.

In that elite zone there was a separate storyline from mundane zone story that moved players around the area a bit, there were very tough and unique monsters all over the place, a mini dungeon that was open world, 3 open world raid bosses and 2 instanced raids at the very end if you so dared.

And it was freaking awesome.

Just forming parties to reach and clear a "safe path" to the open world raids was super fun. Getting a whole server to raid the area so we could spawn this epic giant lizard thingy, there was an open world MAZE for goodness sake, people going on elite weapon hunts in that area, mini dungeon open world PvPvEvGvG. There were huge guilds wars on the steps to some of the bosses, people racing through the dungeon. All of it was super, super cool.

I think that model fits GW2 a lot better than Blackwing Lair: GW2 Edition.

Some of us can't help that bias.

That's fine. We all have biases.

[Kelimbror]

*SNIP*

I agree completely.

I would say progression is the reason, but how a person shades that definition varies. Not everyone is after the epics just to have them/show them off. For some, they are just a means to an end, their goal being able to say they completed the raid(achievements)or seeing the content completed with their friends(social activity).

Indeed. It just seems that people get very defensive about having motives for raiding. If we were playing Family Feud and we were guessing the motivations for raiding, Gear would be #1 and 'just because' would result in and 'X'.

I think there is a stigma associated with saying you raid for purples, when it's what most people likely do. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's literally the point of the game's design: power progression. Obviously for GW2 this would be a paradigm shift if it happened, but it's not out of the question. While I'm sure you could throw cosmetics, dyes, and minis into the reward schema for raiding in GW2 it wouldn't be as impacting as providing a gear progression.

I guess the conflict is that it seems so counter to everything as constructed and slight deviation (as evidenced by Ascended gear) causes a ruckus. Perhaps it's just a vocal minority, but it does seem to shift the perception of the game's purity. To me, isolating the gear progression to only matter inside raids would be a fine compromise of design principles, but I'm not sure if people would be compelled even then when they have no clear advantage over anyone else.

Raid content requires many resources which means it logically needs to have higher participation than the trends we've seen over the last decade. No more 1% target audience with 50% resource allocation. That's just inane. I would like to see raiding in GW2 simply to observe how it unfolds, how it is designed, and if it is successful.

[lawow74]

Just forming parties to reach and clear a "safe path" to the open world raids was super fun. Getting a whole server to raid the area so we could spawn this epic giant lizard thingy, there was an open world MAZE for goodness sake, people going on elite weapon hunts in that area, mini dungeon open world PvPvEvGvG. There were huge guilds wars on the steps to some of the bosses, people racing through the dungeon. All of it was super, super cool.

I remember open-world dungeons in EQ 2. It was interesting to compete for the bosses, try to race ahead of another group and tag it before they could to claim the kill. But that kind of thing goes against the basic principles of GW PvE. It's more like how EOTM is right now, only the focus is more on training the regular champs than trying to clash with the other zergs.

While the idea of a 'champ train zone' has its charm, I just don't see it becoming anything but a grief-fest mess or guild-dominated farmgrind.

- - - Updated - - -

I think there is a stigma associated with saying you raid for purples, when it's what most people likely do. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's literally the point of the game's design: power progression. Obviously for GW2 this would be a paradigm shift if it happened, but it's not out of the question. While I'm sure you could throw cosmetics, dyes, and minis into the reward schema for raiding in GW2 it wouldn't be as impacting as providing a gear progression.

It could be compelling as a true viable alternative to crafting Ascended gear, something many people have complained about in the face of the insane RNG of Ascended drops via Fractals and the like. I also think it's more accurate to say everyone raids for purples but how important the purples are in face of the other goals varies. Some genuinely do care more about their own gear progression than others and just play nice until they have what they're after then *POOF!* Some really do care more about overcoming the challenge, either for their own sake or alongside their friends.

[Karizee]

It's been interesting watching how the CDIs have evolved since they started them about a year ago. These threads are still rather unwieldy, yielding hundreds if not thousands of posts. One thing some may not be aware of is if you only want to skim the topic for dev posts, you can use the up/down arrows located just above and below the dev's name to skip to the next red post. This is helpful since periodically throughout the CDI they will post a summary or distillilation of the topic.

[hrugner]

How many people actually do those raids just for the raid itself and not for the loot (for the aforementioned vertical progression)?

I only have my own guilds as examples; however, it was very common to see a drop in regular attendance after a raid was cleared. There weren't enough people waiting around for easy loot to fill the slots of the dedicated raiders who would be less dedicated when there was no more content to defeat.

edit: I think the design of the plant tower is the closest GW2 needs to get to a raid. Open world, timed repeated progress through an open world zone. While I didn't like the design of the tower itself, I liked the rest of that experience.

[4KhazModan]

edit: I think the design of the plant tower is the closest GW2 needs to get to a raid. Open world, timed repeated progress through an open world zone. While I didn't like the design of the tower itself, I liked the rest of that experience.

Maybe if they increased the size tenfold and put an awesome boss at the end of each floor. Basically, what I THOUGHT the Tower of Nightmares was going to be in the first place, man did I overhype it for myself last year. I was so disappointed with what it actually turned out to be, 10 minute clear and a short 1 boss instance at the top.

As a raider for a long time, I can tell you that those who do it for loot are not the ones you want in a serious progression raid, and they are also usually the worst ones in the group. They are the ones that want to reset the instance every week instead of saving the lockout to keep progressing one a particular boss. If it isn't a farm night, they may not even show up in the first place.

[nevermore]

I personally like that very casual nature of GW2, that's one of the main reasons I keep returning to it. I've played WoW uber-hardcore for many years and it was fun, but that sort of commitment doesn't fit into my life any more -- and I imagine it's true for the majority of players. They just don't have the time, skill or interest in playing hardcore, and games that want to be successful must accommodate this.

On the other hand, the GW2 player base (while very nice and helpful) has to be the worst, most unskilled, most braindead bunch of people I've ever seen in any MMO.
Like, they introduce a boss that has 1 (ONE) mechanic that you need to dodge, it's telegraphed well in advance, and people just fail over and over and over and over, and then they spam the official forums about OMG WHY IS IT SO HARD ANET NERF PLS.

I doubt they'd ever make it past lvl20 in WoW and that says something.

Anyway, point is GW2 doesn't need raids, "raids" or anything of that sort. It's really not designed to host that sort of content, nor is the player base ready for any kind of difficulty.

IMO. Feel free to disagree.

[Valeron]

personally I would love if they had more big fights like the Twisted Marionette or even the Triple Trouble event. Rather have those than the typical raid encounters that you have in almost every other themepark MMO.

[hrugner]

Maybe if they increased the size tenfold and put an awesome boss at the end of each floor. Basically, what I THOUGHT the Tower of Nightmares was going to be in the first place, man did I overhype it for myself last year. I was so disappointed with what it actually turned out to be, 10 minute clear and a short 1 boss instance at the top.

As a raider for a long time, I can tell you that those who do it for loot are not the ones you want in a serious progression raid, and they are also usually the worst ones in the group. They are the ones that want to reset the instance every week instead of saving the lockout to keep progressing one a particular boss. If it isn't a farm night, they may not even show up in the first place.

I agree that the tower of nightmares wasn't quite what it needed to be, but I think it's the right direction for the game to pursue. To make it longer, they'd really need the ability to jump new comers up to the point where people are to some extent. The instance at the end wasn't really the best way to go in my opinion, but it could be made to work. In the form it stayed in, I just left a character up there to farm it solo, which should never be the optimal way to run content.

[Meledelion]

This'll be very long I apologize in advance.

1. I never did anything beyond the LFR difficulty cos I didn't care about challenge. I'm here for entertainment, not work.

2. The grind to gear up to get in, then beating my head against the RNG wall after sitting in a DPS queue for an hour week after week across all my chars just...no.

3. Plus I was a fan of GW from back in the day of Prophecies on up until the start of their GW: Beyond 'content' to bridge to GW 2.

4. No constantly climbing the level ladder(character and item), no waiting around for other players to get permission to play relevant content, no paying a monthly fee just so you can keep doing those two tiresome chores.

5. So I guess the answer is: neither one. I like my easy content and horizontal progression. Long as they keep making Living Story content that's player-centric for me to enjoy, I'll keep playing.

1. There's a fallacy here in that you're judging things without having tried them akin to "I don't like Sushi", have you tried it? "No, it's disgusting." Another part is that overcoming challenges is fun since it releases endorphins. Much like "I finally got my legendary/skin that you want". The path to it may not be the most fun but reaching your goal is awesome and when you look back it was all worth it.

2. This has little to do with raiding, you're speaking about Q's which you don't have in a raiding guild. There's still RNG but most serious raiding guilds don't use a /roll system on top of the RNG of having your desired item drop, they either use DKP (an auction like system) or Loot Council (designated people assign the loot). You only really have to grind if you join late in the season. When WotLK was released many guilds cleared Naxx using T6 gear or simple crafted gear. The idea that you need gear that drops from the raid you're doing is horribly wrong, you can use the gear from previous raid tiers.

3. GW had some raid-like instances: FoW, UW, SF, Deep, Urgoz's Warren, DoA and some missions in Cantha.

4. For the first part, I already addressed this in points 1 and 2, the sub mode again has nothing to do with raiding.

5. Did you like Marrionette/Scarlet fights? Those are a (bad) copy of raids.

1. We all raid for the purples. Everyone else is in denial. Now, if a game introduced raiding with different design and goal structures, then maybe.

2.While people playing GW2 may be more prone to doing it for cosmetic rewards as opposed to power, no one is going to do it just to do it.

1. I'd urge you to please take off your WoW-glasses. GW had "raids" with no vertical progression and no epics. People went there because they liked the challenge (I'm talking about the days before the power creep where clearing UW/FOW took >4h).

2. People still do fractals even though you get jack shit from them. People did PvP before the reward tracks.
Take your mind out of video games for a second, why do people massively build trainsets? Why do some people solve puzzles? Why do some people fix cars at a huge loss (time+money spent? The answer is simple, they like doing it so they just do it to do it.

1. It super unlikely they would introduce a raid type mode in GW2 where there is no reward of some kind. In which case one is raiding for the "purples" just the same.

2. Getting the "purples" is a matter of course. Rarely does one have to actively work to really get that gear/reward. They literally just happen and you get all your stuff anyway in X weeks anyway. No matter who you are for the most.

3. I have had few bad experiences raiding. It's usually a ton of fun and often mechanically interesting.

4. Though I think those overly negative about the 2nd era MMO raiding scheme have likely had frustrating &/or poor experiences which lead to a certain bias.

1. There will always be rewards, they're the bait on the hook but the idea is that people stay after the bait is gone.

2. This is very true in regards to gear/loot which is why it's nonsensical to me to claim that ppl do it for the grind/vert-progression/gear. If this were true people wouldn't finish the last raid since there isn't another one coming (soon).

3. Everybody has bad experiences, it's people not being ready on time, taking half an hour Bio-breaks, not having the right stuff on them (ele resist gear, pots,...) or one of the bad players keeping progress back. It happens just like anywhere else when you're dealing with people.
The mechanics are what makes raiding fun. Needing someone to kite stuff while DPSing while someone else has to slow them etc makes things fun and interesting. The problem with mechanics like that is that you need enough mobs to make it interesting (kiting one guy is EZ). Lot's of dungeons are used as introductions to Raids where you get the combination of different mechanics. If you want to make things more complex/interesting you have to use more players so there's interaction.

A simple example: In a dungeon you need to get a buff so that "trash" enemies follow you. You need to kite these guys because they explode and put out poison.
This is aimed at one person so it's simple add in one more and things can get more fun: Two groups need to be kited one follows the "blue" buff and the other the red one, everything else is the same. There's more complexity since: the players can't cross each other or they die and adds will run free. Just adding one person already makes things more interesting, you can easily expand on this by making the colors swap or w/e.

4. This appears to be the case, in my first quote it's obvious that there's some bias going on. Same thing in the second one and likely in more to come.

1. I would like a return to raid zones, like in EQ. Or perhaps something like the elite areas in SWTOR w/ mini goals spread out through elite zone.

2. In that elite zone there was a separate storyline from mundane zone story that moved players around the area a bit, there were very tough and unique monsters all over the place, a mini dungeon that was open world, 3 open world raid bosses and 2 instanced raids at the very end if you so dared.

3. Getting a whole server to raid the area so we could spawn this epic giant lizard thingy.

1. I'm not familiar with either of those but is it in any way similar to what GW2 already has in regards to world bosses (aside from the fact that they are static with no mechanics at all etc)?

2. So basically "events" from GW2 (escort this idiot to the wurm place, escort this other idiot to the weapons, kill some crystals,....)? But on a bigger scale where the entire map is changed instead of there being one more silly event?

3. This seems like anti fun to me: "Oh we're not enough, no boss GL tomorrow I suppose...".

1. I think there is a stigma associated with saying you raid for purples, when it's what most people likely do. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's literally the point of the game's design: power progression.

2. I guess the conflict is that it seems so counter to everything as constructed and slight deviation (as evidenced by Ascended gear) causes a ruckus. Perhaps it's just a vocal minority, but it does seem to shift the perception of the game's purity. To me, isolating the gear progression to only matter inside raids would be a fine compromise of design principles, but I'm not sure if people would be compelled even then when they have no clear advantage over anyone else.

2. The ruckus was because a-net promised "no vertical progression" and then BAM vertical progression out of nowhere.

3. Raid content requires many resources which means it logically needs to have higher participation than the trends we've seen over the last decade. No more 1% target audience with 50% resource allocation. That's just inane. I would like to see raiding in GW2 simply to observe how it unfolds, how it is designed, and if it is successful.

1. The "Stigma" comes from the fact that you don't need current gear to the current raid, while many/most people believe this is the case. If you admit to raiding for gear you're either saying: "I need training wheels to see the content" or "I don't care about the content I just wanna look cool." both are fine but the second runs into the problem that you can't just give stuff away because people want it. "I want a lamborghini", great sell your house take a loan bam you got your car if you're not willing to do that you don't really want it.

There's been a shift since WotLK where people felt like they were entitled to seeing everything which makes the "gear, gear! geaaar! geaaaarrrrr!!!!" mindset worse. In TBC there was progression in difficulty etc. You started with Karazhan not because you need the gear from there to kill Gruul or w/e but because it's the most basic raid which introduces you to many mechanics. This kept going till you got to SC where elements from every previous raid were brought together to put up some of the most complex fights. To make more people see the end raids Bliz decided to give away non current gear at a discount so many people joined the "I only need this item..." idea of thinking, which spiraled out of control with the release of totc.

2. The ruckus was because a-net promised "no vertical progression" and then BAM vertical progression out of nowhere.

3. Everything requires many resources only A-net knows exactly how much.

1. I personally like that very casual nature of GW2, that's one of the main reasons I keep returning to it. I've played WoW uber-hardcore for many years and it was fun, but that sort of commitment doesn't fit into my life any more -- and I imagine it's true for the majority of players. They just don't have the time, skill or interest in playing hardcore, and games that want to be successful must accommodate this.

2. On the other hand, the GW2 player base (while very nice and helpful) has to be the worst, most unskilled, most braindead bunch of people I've ever seen in any MMO.
Like, they introduce a boss that has 1 (ONE) mechanic that you need to dodge, it's telegraphed well in advance, and people just fail over and over and over and over, and then they spam the official forums about OMG WHY IS IT SO HARD ANET NERF PLS.

3. I doubt they'd ever make it past lvl20 in WoW and that says something.

Anyway, point is GW2 doesn't need raids, "raids" or anything of that sort. It's really not designed to host that sort of content, nor is the player base ready for any kind of difficulty.

1. That's fine but the issue is that hard-core guilds drive the community. When everything can be done by everyone things get boring really fast. Legendaries for instance are so common that they simply aren't a feat at all.

2. This is the result. People will get worse and worse. As with everything someone has to do it first then all of a sudden lots of people follow soon after (think about running 100m <10s for instance). This is what I was getting at with HC-players being the drive. If HC-players stop playing they can't show how to do stuff so things have to get easier, meaning more people get bored and so on and so forth.

3. I've played with absolutely horrible players even in hardcore raiding guilds. People who can't stop DPS on Yogg for instance or others who can't kite and do their DPS rotation. A big problem is that you (and I) come from a super select group: raiders. We're even more select in that we were hard-core raiders, so it's likely we met less bad players.

personally I would love if they had more big fights like the Twisted Marionette or even the Triple Trouble event. Rather have those than the typical raid encounters that you have in almost every other themepark MMO.

What do you prefer about them? The RNG of getting people who are smart enough to lane hop? The RNG of having enough people to begin with?

[Kelimbror]

1. There's a fallacy here in that you're judging things without having tried them akin to "I don't like Sushi", have you tried it? "No, it's disgusting."

Have you tried poop yet? You may love it. Have you been shot? It's pretty rad. Jellyfish wrestling? Could be your favorite hobby, but you don't know. Or is it possible that you can observe characteristics of something you know you won't enjoy prior to actually experiencing it in a direct manner? (b/c this is MMO-C, I feel I need to specifically point out these are rhetorical questions. I died a little inside when I realized this is now necessary)

Re: your quotes of me. Take off your biased glasses. It has nothing to do with WoW. If you actually read what I wrote and then elaborated on, I give numerous examples of what 'purples' means to anyone and I'm also talking about a majority of people not an obscure minority. You even admitted in your 'rebuttal' of what I said that the very reference you use changed their design. What does that tell you? It's not like they just said hey let's change things for no reason. Perhaps they had some actual data that shows it was preferred?

But yes, I realize that it's a design shift which will rub people the wrong way and I pointed that out in detail. I'm not really sure what you were trying to say to be honest. The language is very disagreeable, but then you say the same things I've said minus the fallacies of your own. I'm confused?

[Valeron]

What do you prefer about them? The RNG of getting people who are smart enough to lane hop? The RNG of having enough people to begin with?

not necessarily the RNG (not a fan of RNG for any part of a game but anyway) but just the feeling of something big, in the open world, and having a community involved with it. Yeah you will have people who suck but I'm ok with that. There are plenty of games with instanced raiding such as World of Warcraft, Rift, SWTOR, AoC, Wildstar, and a lot more that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Why does GW2 need that?

[lawow74]

This'll be very long I apologize in advance.


1. There's a fallacy here in that you're judging things without having tried them akin to "I don't like Sushi", have you tried it? "No, it's disgusting." Another part is that overcoming challenges is fun since it releases endorphins. Much like "I finally got my legendary/skin that you want". The path to it may not be the most fun but reaching your goal is awesome and when you look back it was all worth it.

2. This has little to do with raiding, you're speaking about Q's which you don't have in a raiding guild. There's still RNG but most serious raiding guilds don't use a /roll system on top of the RNG of having your desired item drop, they either use DKP (an auction like system) or Loot Council (designated people assign the loot). You only really have to grind if you join late in the season. When WotLK was released many guilds cleared Naxx using T6 gear or simple crafted gear. The idea that you need gear that drops from the raid you're doing is horribly wrong, you can use the gear from previous raid tiers.

3. GW had some raid-like instances: FoW, UW, SF, Deep, Urgoz's Warren, DoA and some missions in Cantha.

4. For the first part, I already addressed this in points 1 and 2, the sub mode again has nothing to do with raiding.

5. Did you like Marrionette/Scarlet fights? Those are a (bad) copy of raids.

1) You probably didn't see what I said about my latency and the nature of my Internet connection(Satellite Internet). I have an insurmountable 800ms of ping(for much of my time playing WoW it was closer to 1500ms), something that makes trying to do raid-style content much harder for me. My skill delays are higher, thus my DPS is lower no matter how hard I try because of a handicap that is not my fault(in any reasonable fashion, as I am not about to move to the city or pay tens of thousands of dollars just so I can 'be more better at vidja games'). Compound that with much much less time to react to raid mechanics and the general attitude any raiding guild is going to have about someone with that kind of handicap wanting to play with them and you see the series of false choices laid before me.

To address your analogy more directly, I'm sure tackle football is great fun for that guy on crutches cos he's missing his right leg below the knee.

2)See 1, above. Additionally I'm the kind of person who prefers to keep my chars on equal footing. This is much less of a concern in GW 2 since the difference between Ascended and Exotic is minor, and for the content I'm going to do(Living Story and Open World, not Dungeons, Fractals or WvW)Exotics are more than good enough. As you might guess, I also far prefer crafting gear than battering my head into the RNG wall.

3)I never did The Deep, I did Urgoz one time, the rest I'd done a few times, I never fully completed UW(didn't go on any of the UBWay runs later in the game), did FoW many times with a partner and Heroes(by the time of EotN FoW was a joke for an Imbagon player with SF Eles and a MM Necro, I thoroughly enjoyed trashing it repeatedly). Prior to Heroes many of the Cantha missions could be real nut-busters, once Heroes came along everything pretty much melted in the face of a pet MM Necro and SF Eles. But unless you were doing Hard Mode(which I never cared for), the mechanics were vastly simpler. Send in a patsy who soaks up the aggro and destroy everything around it. The MM Necro, once you got that initial hurdle over of putting the first few minions in gear, was great for this. I think fondly of doing Vizunah Square with Heroes and friends and drowning the Afflicted in 3 MM Necros across the two teams. Or going up Snake Dance and Dreadnought's Drift with that same team of MM and SF driven by an Imbagon and laughing at everything just dying like moths before a flamethrower. Same with other locations that historically gave people trouble, like Thirsty River and the infamous Thunderhead Keep. And Gyala Hatchery was a lolfest, too.

4)For me it's an influence, cos the cost of a sub does put a certain feeling of not getting your money's worth if you're not progressing your characters, the method which I was funneled into already made clear by the above. Battlefield: Barrens was understandably much more enjoyable for me as a way to fill in certain gear gaps than Queue Finder.

5)I did the Scarlet fight only as long as I had to to see the story. Didn't care about the cheevs directly tied to that fight, just wanted it done. The Marionette fight was okay, I did some cheevs tied to it as part of completing the meta at the time, I mostly just felt like whether we won or lost was not up to me but everyone else and that wasn't especially fun. I'd rather just do my loot-pinata World Bosses if I'm going to do that, which I've largely stopped cos I'm no longer in the need for the loot, just care about getting Daily/Monthly stuff done and slowly doing map completion across all chars(that's not WvW, at least)while waiting for Living Story updates.